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Private company

Blackburne

British motorcycle manufacturer

Blackburne was a trade name of Burney and Blackburne Limited a British manufacturer of motorcycles from 1913 to 1922 at Tongham near Farnham, Surrey. They were also a major supplier of engines to other motor cycle and light car makers and continued to make these until 1937. Burney and Blackburne also made small aircraft engines.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1913Founded1
  • Industryaircraft industry, automotive industry1
  • HeadquartersTongham1

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Blackburne was a trade name of Burney and Blackburne Limited a British manufacturer of motorcycles from 1913 to 1922 at Tongham near Farnham, Surrey. They were also a major supplier of engines to other motor cycle and light car makers and continued to make these until 1937. Burney and Blackburne also made small aircraft engines.2

Products and brands

Around 1922, Blackburne first ran the Tomtit two-cylinder light aircraft engine based on the Lympne 696 cc V-twin.

In 1924 the company produced the Blackburne Thrush a three-cylinder light aircraft engine. The first engine design was of 1098 cc, consistent with the capacity limit imposed for the 1924 light aeroplane trials at Lympne. The engine was enlarged and improved during 1925 to 1494 cc for further air trials held during 1926. In late 1925 the engine passed the severe Air Ministry 100 hours operational test. There are two known surviving engines, one of 1100 cc and the other the 1500 cc unit at the Shuttleworth museum at Old Warden, although there may be others.

Note that the Blackburne engines are not related to the Blackburn Aircraft Company (founded by Robert Blackburn), even though the Blackburn Bluebird was a Blackburn aircraft with a Blackburne engine.

The De Havilland DH53 Humming Bird was a 1923 ultra-light plane, the first two initially powered by Douglas engines, but they changed to Blackburne engines to get improved reliability. The last two made were involved in experiments to launch and recover them from the R33 airship.

From Wikipedia’s article on Blackburne (motorcycles), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 1937Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 1913Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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